For the Good of the Order
by sie-nicole
Summary: There were whispers of a war. Two young wizards would lose their lives protecting their son, who would save their kind twice from the unexplainable horrors of a wizarding world ruled by dark magic. But for now, there was only Lily Evans and James Potter and whispers of a war to come.
1. Chapter 1: The Right Choice

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters mentioned. Everything belongs to JoRo and WarnerBros. This is purely a fan piece and is not intended to infringe on any copyrights.  
**

**A/N: Hello, readers. I had written this once before, but halfway through chapter two, I decided on some major chapter changes. As such, I've edited chapter one to be more canon, and in doing so had to delete and start over. I lost all of my reviews, which sucks, but hopefully this version will be better for all of you. I plan on getting chapter two out soon, but I can't guarantee speedy updates after that.**

**Reviews are awesome. You can also talk to me on tumblr (jamespotter-thechaser) about the story. Enjoy! **

**- Sie**

* * *

There were whispers of a war. Whispers saved for private after-dinner discussions, for the subject was one to be avoided in public discourse; much like politics, though this war was more than just political. Soon, these whispers would become cries and the wizarding world would find itself broken, nearly beyond repair. Two young wizards would lose their lives protecting their son, who would save their kind twice from the unexplainable horrors of a wizarding world ruled by dark magic.

But for now, there was only Lily Evans and James Potter and whispers of a war to come.

* * *

Lily Evans sat in an empty train compartment. She stared out of the window, watching Muggle-London fly past her. A twinge of sadness pulled her heart back to her home. For the first time since she was eleven, her desire to be at Hogwarts was clouded by grief. She shifted her attention to the empty seat across from her and found herself biting her lip.

The compartment door crashed open, pulling only Lily's eyes away from the seat before her. A mop of black hair and disheveled robes stumbled into the doorway.

"Lily!" James Potter was out of breath. "There you are! I've been looking for you. They need you in the prefects' compartment, remember? Hey - are you okay?"

James had been speaking very fast, but now slowed with a sense of concern. Lily realized her brow was furrowed and her teeth still dug into her lower lip. She snapped back into prefect mode and instantaneously felt panicked. _How could I have forgotten the first prefect meeting?_

"Right! I'm sorry, I guess I forgot…" She fell back out of focus, trailing off to her thoughts of home. "Right," she repeated. "Sorry."

James stood awkwardly in the door frame. At the same second, James and Lily realized who they were alone with. James immediately started running his hands through his hair and adjusted his stance into what he hoped was a cool lean. Lily rolled her eyes.

"Right, well…" James struggled for words. "The prefects' meeting…"

"-I'll be there. Just give me a minute."

James opened his mouth, but then seemingly decided against replying. Instead, he backed out of the compartment, leaving Lily to her thoughts.

Lily glanced back out of the window. The train had picked up even more speed and if she stopped focusing her eyes, the scenery became a green blur. It made her a little dizzy. The young witch looked down at her hands, which she had ignored this entire time. In them was a small folded letter. She unfolded the parchment and glanced over the familiar handwriting, without reading the actual words. She had them memorized by now, anyway.

She looked up at the open compartment door. _The prefects' meeting. _Very carefully, she folded the letter up and placed it inside her robes. She stood and inhaled deeply._ Stop thinking about him,_ she thought over and again until she was confident enough to leave the empty cabin.

Closing the door behind her, she had almost forgotten the letter completely.

* * *

The relief was short lived. Lily had all but run to the prefect compartment, thrown open the door, and suddenly twenty-three sets of eyes were on here. She was the only one standing, aside from the Head Boy, Frank Longbottom, and the Head Girl, Alice Brand, who had clearly been interrupted by Lily's entrance. She avoided eye contact and slid into the seat next to Remus Lupin, her fellow sixth year Gryffindor prefect.

"Glad you could make it," Remus joked under his breath.

"Glad you bothered to come get me yourself," Lily hissed back.

"James vol–"

But Remus was cut off by Frank Longbottom clearing his throat quite loudly, directing their attention to the front of the cabin. He winked at the pair of Gryffindors and Lily recognized Frank's version of a warning. She sat quietly while Alice proceeded to introduce the duties of a prefect to the fifth years and again while Frank explained the new rules for the year. (Lily noticed that while Remus was paying attention, he looked fairly occupied in thought. _Probably looking for loopholes or finding ways to break the new rules in record time,_ Lily guessed.) Aside from Remus, the redhead avoided looking at the faces of her fellow prefects. Instead, she stared intently at the Head Boy and Girl while they spoke, only looking away to stare at her now empty hands. Finally, they were given slips of parchment with their House's dormitory password written on them and were excused. Some fifth years lingered behind to ask Frank and Alice questions, but Lily wasted no time bolting for the door. The reason for this became obvious in her failed escape. She had only taken a few steps into the corridor, when she was cut off by a scrawny student with scraggly black hair. The silver and green on his robes had seen much better days. Severus Snape looked even more pitiful than the last time Lily had seen him.

They stood there, staring at each other, for a moment that seemed to last forever. Lily felt her face flush, then burn. Severus still didn't speak. He wasn't searching for words – he'd practiced this moment in his head all summer – he just couldn't bring himself to say them. His eyes pleaded with Lily to know what he wanted to tell her.

Lily knew exactly what Severus would say and thus refused to meet his gaze. She, too, had anticipated this moment all summer, though she had hoped it wouldn't be forced on her in a tiny train corridor. She waited for him to speak, just long enough so that she could feel justified in leaving. His eyes dug into her, but no words came out, so she stepped past him, wanting to go back to her lonely compartment and disappear.

"Lily…"

She turned slowly on her heel and looked back at Snape blankly.

"I-I'm sorry," he said, looking her square in the eyes. "You have to believe that I'm sorry."

Lily said nothing. Severus paused. She thought that if this had been the Sev and Lily of one year ago, maybe he would have allowed himself to beg for forgiveness, but he knew now that he didn't really deserve it.

"Did you get my letter?"

"Yes." She reached in her robes pocket and fingered the letter gingerly.

"Did you read it?"

"Yes."

"Lily, please. I can't do this if you won't talk to me." Snape really was desperate now. He knew exactly how stubborn (not to mention how cold) Lily could be when she wanted.

"And what exactly are you trying to do, Sev? Apologize?"

"Yes–"

"Well, fine! You've apologized. That doesn't change anything between us. You've been repeating the same thing since the end of last year. '_I'm sorry, it slipped out_,' and '_I didn't mean it_,' and '_How can you throw away our friendship after one mistake?_' and it's getting old, Sev. It's getting really old." Lily looked at the broken face of her former friend and continued. "Because the Severus I was friends with would have never called me what you did. And I tried to ignore the rumors about you lately, because I hoped you were better than that. Since when are you friends with Rosier? And Mulciber? You've changed and calling me a Mudblood in front of half the school last year just confirmed what I had already thought."

"Lily–"

"You made your decision a long time ago, Severus. No begging, no…letter, is going to change that. I can't keep making excuses for you. I can't and I won't."

She turned as quickly as she could and took long strides down the hallway, leaving a much deflated Severus Snape behind. The rest of the walk was a blur and she ended up in her same empty compartment.

She wanted to lie on the floor, to melt into it and fade away. But Lily carefully and skillfully climbed onto the seat, right foot first, and sat hugging her knees to her chest. She looked around the empty compartment and felt that this is what the rest of her time at Hogwarts might be like. Though many people _liked _Lily Evans, it was another thing entirely to be someone's friend, and she had just permanently severed the best friend she'd had since she found out she was magic. She felt a very complete kind of loneliness.

For the remainder of the train ride, Lily buried her head into her knees, and allowed herself to cry.

* * *

The Marauders' compartment was shockingly calm. James sat on the floor, organizing the new Chocolate Frog cards he'd gotten off of the food trolley. Sirius Black, his best friend, took up an entire bench by lying across it on his back, as he flipped through the pages of _Quidditch Monthly_. Across from him, taking up much of the other bench, was Peter Pettigrew, a small boy who laid down halfway on the seat and half against the wall. He was fast asleep.

Their initial summer catch-up chat had been short, due to Sirius having moved in with the Potters near the start of the summer and Remus being preoccupied with his prefects' meeting. While Peter was their friend, his home life was rather dull and mostly consisted of taking care of his mother (and though they'd never admit it, the other three admired him deeply for that). James often thought that if the other students actually knew the four boys, scenes like this would just seem natural. Beyond the pranks and rule-breaking, they were just content with being around each other. They fit together.

The final piece to the puzzle finally opened the compartment door and the only part of the scene that changed was Sirius dropping his magazine on his face trying to turn a page.

"Frightfully exciting in here, aren't we?" Remus mused, as he lifted Peter's feet and dropped them to the floor. The small boy jumped up in his seat and fumbled for his wand.

"Merlin! It's just you, Moony. Why'd you have to go and wake me up? I was having this lovely dream about Amy Bones and –"

"And that's exactly why I woke you up. Honestly, you can't save those kinds of dreams for when you're in your dorm bed with curtains around it?" He grinned at Peter, who proceeded to smack him in the head.

"Oi! Watch it Wormtail!"

"Gentlemen, please." Sirius had stood and was stretching his lengthy limbs. "No need for violence so soon into the school year."

"The school year hasn't even begun, Sirius."

"Right! So no need to kill each other yet! And seeing as the school hasn't started, I can't really get in trouble…" Sirius removed an old silver cigarette case from his robes.

"On the train? Really, Sirius?"

"Can't exactly step outside now, can I, Moony?" Sirius smirked as he lit a cigarette, inhaled, and blew the smoke in Remus' face.

"Couldn't kick the smoking habit over the summer, then, Padfoot?" Remus coughed, knowing full well that Sirius had no intentions of quitting.

"'Course not. Prongs, on the other hand –"

"Hey, you'd quit, too, after that night we were drunk on Firewhiskey and you made me smoke an entire pack in one go. I threw up after that."

Sirius laughed. "Mate, you threw up because you couldn't hold your liquor. We can't all be as talented as me."

"I wouldn't call being a drunkard a talent," James said.

"Ah! But it is when I do it!" And on this, Sirius took a deep, dramatic bow followed by another puff of his cigarette.

"If anyone comes in, I was just telling you to stop." The boys didn't respond, but everyone understood. They knew what being a prefect meant to Remus and none of them would risk that by letting him get accused of favoritism.

"So how was the meeting?" asked James, a little too eagerly. He hoped no one noticed.

"Fine. There's a new rule about the use of broomsticks indoors –"

"I mean, honestly, how did they not have that before we came about?" Sirius asked.

"Right, well, no one exactly anticipated you two attempting to fly through the ceiling in the Great Hall –"

"Which is surprising solid. You wouldn't think so just by looking at it, though, eh, Prongs?"

"I don't think my forehead ever properly recovered."

"–other than that, just a lot of the usual stuff," Remus carried on as if the two hadn't interjected. "How to document point deductions, the proper point deductions for the type of rule-breaking, that sort of thing."

"What James really meant to ask," Sirius said between puffs, "is how was Miss Evans?"

James hit Sirius across the back of the knee, causing the boy to stumble over James' cards spread over the floor.

"Hey!" James yelled out.

"Your own doing, mate!" Sirius yelled back, laughing as he slumped into the seat. "Now, Moony, you were filling us in on the elusive ginger?"

"Ah, well. She was a bit, erm…_short _with me about sending you after her, James."

"What? Why?"

"Mostly I think she wanted me to go through the mild embarrassment of walking in late with her."

"Oh." James let the word hang in the air and distracted himself by reorganizing his Chocolate Frog cards. He was relieved that it wasn't because Lily hated him – or at least, she wasn't outwardly expressing hatred for him – and that was definitely progress. He had spent the summer trying to push her out of his mind and had little success. He resigned to crossing his fingers that she had managed to push him out of her mind, and thus he'd have a fresh start this school year. After the catastrophe of the previous spring, he was going to need a new approach. James had volunteered to fetch Lily earlier to feel her out, but he couldn't quite read her. However, Remus' account gave him some reassurance. _She doesn't hate me_, he thought to himself and felt a small flip in his gut. _Maybe this year will be different_.

"I think we'll be there soon," said Remus, breaking the brief silence. The boys looked out of the window and saw the familiar countryside.

"Guess we should tell Wormtail then, huh?" Sirius said, raising the corner of his mouth slightly.

The other two looked to their silent friend. Sure enough, he had fallen back asleep.

* * *

Every year, getting off of the train and into a carriage was a mess. The first years wandered around, looking lost and terrified – which didn't change when they saw that a giant, scruffy man named Hagrid was taking them to the castle. The crowded platform was filled with shouts, students trying to usher other students to share carriages with them. A guaranteed way to start off a year badly was to end up in a carriage with someone like Evan Rosier (a seventh year Slytherin who hexed younger students for sport).

This year, Lily stood on the platform and had absolutely no idea what to do. Normally, she would ride in a carriage with Sev and (as much as she didn't like to admit it, probably because of Severus) other students would generally leave them be. Without him, the platform felt foreign.

The other students rushed past her and she finally realized that she would have to move. She managed to climb into an empty carriage and hoped no one would join her. That hope was lost within seconds. Sirius Black, of all people, stuck his head in her carriage and asked, "Mind if I join?"

Lily sat up. "Uhm, sure."

"Excellent." Sirius climbed in and sat across from her.

The redhead squinted at her new companion. "Look – I don't mean to be rude, but don't you normally ride up with your little gang?"

"Ah, yes. But, see, even though I'm quite experienced in the chase for carriages, I somehow managed to make the mistake of an untimely bathroom visit, and ended up losing track of my, erm, 'little gang.'" He winked. "But then I saw you, and thought, why not? You're the only Gryffindor girl who hasn't tried to shag me, so I figured there'd be no embarrassing situations on the way to the castle."

"Ugh, Sirius, really?" Lily rolled her eyes.

"Hey, I'm doing you a favor here. I saw Mulciber eying your carriage."

"Oh." Lily suddenly felt very grateful for Sirius' presence. "Well, thanks, then."

Sirius raised the corner of his lip. "No problem, Red."

Lily smiled back at him. Even though she couldn't stand the nickname, Sirius said it with such charm that it was, at the very least, amusing. _Maybe this carriage ride won't be awful after all_.

"So how was your summer?" the Gryffindor asked her.

Her heart dropped. She became very aware of her still slightly puffy eyes and tried to find a pleasant way to describe the worst summer of her life.

"It was…fine." The word felt wrong in her mouth and she looked to Sirius to see if he could tell. He was studying her face with a quizzical look that reminded her of a lion she had once seen in a muggle zoo when she was younger. Petunia had gawked and called out to it, eventually giving up when it didn't move, but to Lily, it just seemed sad and scared, like it wanted everyone to disappear. That's how she felt now. Sirius was Petunia , Lily was the lion, and this carriage was a cage that neither of them could escape. She turned her face toward the window, perhaps a little too quickly.

"Fine?" Sirius asked.

"Fine."

"Well, this sounds like a story I should hear," Sirius said. He leaned in toward her and rest his elbows on his knees.

She sighed. If there was one thing Lily was bad at, it was hiding her emotions. "No offense, but I don't know that you're the person I want to get into this with, Sirius."

"Ah, I'm sure Snivellus is a better listener than I, anyway."

Lily wasn't prepared to hear his nickname. Sirius had said it so plainly, so naturally, as though it was obvious that Lily and Severus would have made up over the summer. It caught her off-guard, and in her already exposed state, it was too much. She continued staring out of the window, and barely noticed the tear sliding down her face.

"Woah, hey." Sirius became intensely concerned, making Lily all too aware of the fact that she was crying in front of him. She wanted to take it back and start this whole conversation over, but it was too late. Sirius had gotten up and put his arm around her and the kindness of the gesture brought on a wave of fresh tears.

"Bad summer, then?" Sirius joked. Lily simply nodded.

"Sev and I…we just…we're not…"

"Breathe." Sirius instructed. She inhaled deeply, exhaled through her nose and started over.

"After the incident last spring…Sev and I, we didn't make up. We're not friends anymore." The words started falling out of her mouth. "And being home with a sister who hates me and no one to talk to, it was awful and he kept trying to apologize, and I wanted to forgive him because…I was lonely and miserable and he was my best friend."

"Lily." Sirius was focused and said each of his words carefully. "A best friend would _never _call you that name."

She looked up at him and was now immensely grateful for his presence. "Thank you," she replied softly. "I – I…didn't forgive him. Not even today, when he cornered me after the prefect meeting."

"He did _what_?"

"He just wanted to talk to me. I ignored him all summer."

"Stupid git." Lily gave him a look. "Sorry, I know he was your friend and all, but…"

"No, it's fine. I think I need to hear that right now."

"In that case, he's also a bit of a twat."

Lily laughed and realized it had been months since she had last done so. "Thank you," she repeated.

"Anytime," he said, flashing her a real smile. She had a very sudden thought-

"Do me a favor?"

"Anything."

She began wiping her face on the sleeve of her robe. "Don't tell James about this. The last thing I need is for him to swoop in and try to help me."

"Love, I think the last thing you need is me helping you, but that's what you ended up with. Who knows? James might not be so bad." He looked to her and grinned. When Lily's expression didn't change, his face dropped and he added - "But I won't breathe a word of this to him. Promise."

Lily gave him a small smile in gratitude.

"Hey, I reckon we're there by now." Sirius said, while crouching over to the window for a look. He had guessed right and their carriage was pulling up to the castle. It slowed to a stop, and as they got out, Lily couldn't help playing Sirius' words over in her head. What if it had been James who had stumbled into her carriage, instead of Sirius? Could James have changed? Was he worth a second chance?

It wasn't a decision to be made right then. She shook the thought out of her head as she followed the mob of students toward the castle. She glanced back at Sirius, who was waiting on his friends, and he gave her a reassuring smile. Lily knew then that she wouldn't be alone for the rest of her time at Hogwarts. There are some things that cement a friendship and an unexpected emotional breakdown is one of them.

* * *

The Great Hall was buzzing. The final first year student had been sorted ("Zebb, Adam," who had been placed in Ravenclaw) and general chatter had taken over the enormous room. James began scanning the hall, examining the faces of his fellow classmates. He noticed Elizabeth Marsh and Amy Bones with their heads down, deep in conversation. Amy kept looking up with an odd expression. James followed her gaze and found himself staring at Lily Evans. She was sitting next to Marlene Wright and Mary Macdonald, but seemed removed from them. While Mary and Marlene seemed rather excited and chatty, Lily bore the same far-away expression that James had stumbled upon earlier on the train. Her green eyes were unfocused and she appeared…exhausted.

A sudden silence fell over the Great Hall and James watched Lily's eyes flit over toward the staff table. James broke his stare and turned to see the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, standing to address the students. Dumbledore cleared his throat softly and began to speak.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," the ancient wizard started. "Before we begin the start of term feast, I'd like to make a few announcements. First, I would like to remind all students that the use of magic in the corridors is forbidden. This rule encompasses the use of several magical items…including broomsticks." Several eyes found their way toward the Marauders, who grinned at each other in response. Dumbledore himself reflected a hint of amusement in his voice. "For a complete list of magical items banned from use in corridors, see the caretaker, Mr. Filch.

"I'd also like to take a moment to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Giles Prodway." Dumbledore gestured to his right, where Professor Prodway was seated between the Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, and Professor McGonagall, who taught Transfiguration. Prodway seemed fairly young – if he had hit his thirties, it was only barely. He wore plain black robes, and his gray eyes matched his steely expression. There was scattered applause, but Prodway hardly reacted. He simply lifted a hand and waved, before looking back to Dumbledore, who addressed the students once more.

"I won't keep you from filling yourselves – eat! Be merry! As always, welcome home!" and on these last few words, the plates before them overflowed with food. Peter dove into a plate of turkey, while Remus started off with a warm roll of bread. Sirius was grabbing everything in sight. James stared at his empty plate.

"Whatsamatter Prongs?" Sirius asked through a mouth full of potato, "Chocolate Frogs ruin your appetite?"

"Does Prodway seem familiar to you at all?" James posed the question without any regard for Sirius' comment. He couldn't place the rugged face, but Prodway's name stood out in his mind.

"You think you know him?" Peter looked to the wizard across from him, who was looking at his empty plate as though he didn't understand why it was there.

"I feel like I know who he is, at least. I can't put my finger on it."

"Is he worth skipping a meal over, though? I think that level of infatuation this early is coming on a bit too strong, mate."

"Stuff it, Padfoot." A chill swept over James and he shook it off, finally reaching for a turkey leg.

"Hey now, I'd be nice to me or else I'm not sharing any of this glorious feast after I've nicked leftovers from the kitchens later."

"I'll nick some myself."

"But the house elves like me best. I'll just tell one of them you thought the turkey was a bit bland and they'll never let you into the kitchens again."

"The Prophet." Remus said abruptly.

"What?"

"The Prophet – _The Daily Prophet_. They wrote an article about Prodway being hired a while back. I think it included a picture of him and everything."

"Count on Remus to remember a newspaper article," Sirius quipped. "Guess that answers your question, James?"

It didn't. James had a strange feeling about their new professor, but decided that it wasn't the time to dwell on unfounded suspicions. "Sure," he responded, before putting all of his energy into loading up his plate. He hadn't realized until then that he was positively starving.

* * *

Lily stood in the middle of her dormitory. After leading the new Gryffindors to the Common Room, she had darted to her own bedroom and thus was the first of the five girls there. She looked at the familiar beds, with all of their luggage stacked neatly at the ends, and walked over to her own. She touched the curtains gently before pulling them back and sitting on the side of her bed.

_Home_, she thought, then fell backward, landing softly on top of her sheets.

It had been a long and exhausting day. Lily wanted to fall asleep, even though she was still in her robes. She very well might have, had it not been for –

"For Merlin's sake, I can not believe Gavin Ackerly propositioned me for a snog on the train!" Marlene exclaimed, as she threw open the door. "And he thought he was so_ smooth_, too!"

"I mean, you've had worse offers," Mary replied. "At least Gavin's cute."

"Yeah, if you can get past the twenty layers of sleaze."

"And what if underneath that he's a really great guy, huh?"

"I really don't want to try to find that out, Mare."

Lily took a deep breath and sat up, alerting her room mates to her presence.

"Lily!" Marlene started. "We didn't know you were up here. We can go talk somewhere else if we're bothering you –"

"Don't worry about it, you're fine in here." She brushed her hair off of her face and looked at the two girls in front of her.

"How was your summer, Lily?" Mary asked gently.

"It was fine."

"And how are things with Severus?"

Lily should have seen this coming. The night Sev had called her a Mudblood, Mary found him waiting to apologize to Lily outside of the Gryffindor Common Room. Mary (who had been coming back from a late night rendezvous with an unnamed Ravenclaw sixth year) immediately went to find Lily and tell her that Sev had been there all night. For that, Mary at least deserved a decent answer.

"We aren't friends anymore. He kept trying to apologize and I wouldn't accept it. That's it."

"Oh, Lily!" Mary grabbed the redhead and pulled her into a hug. The sweetness of the gesture shocked Lily. "I'm so sorry, I know you two were such good friends!"

"Th-Thanks," Lily sputtered through Mary's long brown hair.

"I know we haven't been very close," Mary started, "but if you need anything, I'm here for you. Marlene, too!" She looked over to the blonde and nodded.

"Right. I'm here for you, too." Marlene said. "Though I can't say I ever understood why you were friends with that– ow!"

Mary had kicked her in the shin, causing Marlene to clutch her leg and a small giggle escaped Lily's lips.

"Thanks, you guys. I appreciate it, honestly." And she did. Even if Mary was a little over-enthusiastic, she meant well. "I think I'm going to get ready for bed now."

"Alright. Want to get breakfast with us tomorrow?" Mary offered.

"Sure," Lily replied with a smile. She opened her trunk and dug out her pajamas, letting her companions resume their conversation about the less-than-appropriate train-snog proposal. And when she eventually climbed into her four-poster bed, she felt that the day had certainly taken several turns and, for the most part, it was all for the better.

* * *

James couldn't sleep.

It wasn't the typical start-of-term-nervousness that kept him awake. He had been lying in bed, wanting to sleep, but never getting past closing his eyes. He could hear Peter's soft snores several feet away. Sirius was grumbling in an indistinguishable sleep-talk and Remus was completely silent (he slept like a baby during the time of the month when he actually slept). Their fifth roommate, a boy named Lance Stebbins, had passed out the moment he returned from the feast.

James' stomach growled audibly. It had been hours since the feast and the mountains of food felt like a distant memory. With nothing better to do, James decided he would sneak to the kitchen, resolve his hunger, and maybe then he'd be able to sleep. So very quietly, James climbed out of bed, grabbed his glasses and his wand, and headed down the dormitory stairs.

He walked into the common room and, to his surprise, found it wasn't empty. Curled up in a large chair by the fireplace was Lily, reading from a piece of parchment that had a significant amount of wear. Her face was scrunched as she read.

It felt odd to be standing there while Lily was sitting unaware, in her pajamas, clearly in the middle of a deeply personal moment. James had two options: head back to his own room or try to walk past her without her noticing. He quickly decided on the former, turned around, and placed his foot on the first step.

_Creeeeeek._

Cursing himself, James turned back around and found a pair a large green eyes burning into him.

"_Potter?_"

"Guilty as charged," James replied, flashing a sheepish, crooked smile.

"What are you doing here this late?

"I could ask the same of you."

"And it'd be none of your business."

"Which is now my answer to your question, Miss Evans." James stood and stared back at Lily in silence for a few moments. The redhead was the first to break eye contact.

"Ugh, fine. I don't even care where you were probably sneaking off to and I'm too tired to pull the prefect card." She looked it, too. "And honestly, I'm too tired to put up with you right now, so if you don't mind…"

James turned red. "What do you mean 'put up with me'?"

Lily sighed. "Keeping up with you – the insults, the wit – it's exhausting. Not to mention the constant attempts to impress me. I just can't deal with it right now."

"Clearly me going to the kitchens in the middle of the night was an attempt to try to impress you. But it's nice to know that's what you think of me." He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. "Guess I'm not hungry after all." On that, he turned to leave.

"James, wait."

He stopped.

"I didn't mean it like that. I'm just…not in the best headspace right now, I guess. You didn't do anything wrong coming down here. I'm sorry." She said each word slowly, with an obvious exhaustion behind every one, while staring wide-eyed at James. His shoulders were tensed and he took his time examining her face. _She apologized_, he thought briefly, wondering what could have exhausted her to the point of being cordial to him now.

James softened and walked toward Lily.

"Does this have to do with why you nearly missed the prefects meeting earlier?"

"Yes." James sat down across from her. "But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not go into specifics about it right now. Everyone keeps bringing it up and I'm just kind of sick of talking about it."

A thought hit James. "It's about Snape, isn't it?"

"See, this is why I don't want to talk to you about it, because you'll go after him and–"

"–no, I won't…it isn't, I'm not…" James took a deep breath. "But it _is_ about him?"

"Yes."

"Well, then…whatever happened, you did the right thing."

Lily looked up at James and stared into his eyes, looking for an answer before she even asked him the question. "And how could you possibly know that?"

"Because you're a smart girl, Evans. You're sort of bound to make the right choice."

The soft orange light from the fireplace bounced off of Lily's skin and hair, making her glow. Her quizzical expression softened into a look that James had never seen before. He looked down at his red plaid pajama pants and plain gray tee shirt and wondered why he felt so exposed. While he searched for an answer, Lily rose to her feet.

"I'm going to head upstairs and try to sleep. You probably should, too. First day of classes and everything tomorrow, you know."

"Yeah." James absentmindedly ran his hand through his hair.

"Well. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Evans."

James watched the redhead walk away, until she reached the stairs and disappeared. He looked to the fireplace and exhaled. He had been holding his breath the entire time.


	2. Chapter 2: A Lesson in Potions

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters mentioned. Everything belongs to JoRo and WarnerBros. This is purely a fan piece and is not intended to infringe on any copyrights.**

**A/N: This chapter wasn't beta'd, because my beta dropped out last minute. I edited it a lot on my own, so hopefully, that's good enough. There's isn't a lot of Jily interaction yet, but don't worry, we'll get there. Enjoy!  
**

**- Sie  
**

* * *

Chapter Two

"A Lesson in Potions"

Lily woke the next morning with what Mary called an "emotion hangover."

"It's when you use too many of your emotions at once," the brunette explained over breakfast. "Once you've calmed down, you feel utterly drained, like you never want to have any emotions ever again."

"Even the good ones," Marlene agreed, while spreading jam across a slice of toast.

"Like a kiss from a Dementor, except your soul just hurts."

"I don't know that I'd go _that_ far," Lily scoffed. "I'm just…tired. That's all."

"Well, don't feel bad. It looks like Elizabeth Marsh is dealing with one, too."

Following Mary's gaze, Lily looked further down the table and saw Elizabeth. She was sitting next to Amy Bones, who looked as though she were trying her hardest to cheer up her best friend. Her efforts were met by a very sullen looking Elizabeth, with her long, dark hair falling in messy sections about her face.

"I wonder what happened to her," Mary said in between bites of sausage.

"I heard she met a boy over the summer. A _muggle_," Marlene whispered scandalously. "Something-or-other Finnigan, I think. Anyway, I guess they had a beautiful summer romance, but she was too scared to tell him that she was a witch."

"What?" Lily's jaw dropped.

"Yep. I suppose she thought he wouldn't like the idea or wouldn't like her anymore or something. She had to break up with him at the end of the summer. Couldn't exactly write to him or anything while here, could she? I mean, it's a little hard to explain why she's sending letters by owls without revealing too much and there's no way for her to send anything by muggle post." Marlene shrugged her shoulders and her blonde curls bounced with the motion.

"She seems really broken up about it," said Mary with concern.

Lily stayed silent. She thought she had recognized the expression on her roommate's face. It was very clear to her now that Elizabeth Marsh was heartbroken. And if anyone understood the feeling of being rejected because of being a witch, it was Lily Evans, whose sister had practically disowned her the moment she got her Hogwarts letter. Though the two girls weren't particularly close friends, Lily looked down the table at the distressed witch and felt an incredible amount of sympathy for her.

"Marls, you're not usually one for gossip," Mary chirped after a moment. "How do you even know all of this?"

"Emmeline Vance told me on the train. She shared a cabin with Amy and Elizabeth and I guess it was all they talked about for the first half of the train ride. I ran into her on the way to the bathroom, and Merlin knows, that girl can't keep her mouth shut."

"Or her legs," Mary giggled, causing Marlene to snort into her bowl of oatmeal.

"Oh, stop it, you two! Emmeline isn't that bad."

"You're right, Lily. I mean, it's not like she slept with half of the boys in our year –"

"–just snogged half of them–"

"–and most of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team–"

"–and the entirety of the Ravenclaw house," Marlene finished, causing all three girls to snort and then cover their faces, because the sudden sound attracted the attention of the students surrounding them. Lily dodged the stares from her classmates by burying her face in her plate for a moment, making herself appear occupied with her breakfast.

"So when do we get our schedules?" Mary asked, breaking the silence.

"McGonagall has to go over our schedules with us and make sure our O.W.L. scores are good enough for the classes we want," Lily answered.

"Why would someone sign up for a class they don't have an O.W.L. in?" Marlene pondered. "If you can't manage an O.W.L., there's no way you're handling N.E.W.T.-level work. It's not easy stuff. Remember last year when Damocles Belby broke down in the common room?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Ugh, don't remind me. I was the prefect on duty that night. As if escorting him the Hospital Wing wasn't bad enough, the paperwork was obnoxious. We don't exactly have a set point deduction for 'screaming one's head off about how they're going to fail in life.'"

"Well, hopefully we can all manage. If anyone hops the train to Crazytown in our dorm, I'm hexing first and asking questions later," Mary said, surprisingly serious. "How'd you guys do on your O.W.L.s, anyway?"

Lily blushed scarlet.

"Looks like Miss Prefect has a great answer to that question," Marlene said.

"You first, Lils!"

It wasn't that Lily was ashamed of her O.W.L.s – on the contrary, she was certain her number of O.W.L.s was almost embarrassingly high. And while there was no shame in doing well, Lily knew it fed into the bookworm image that she was painfully aware of having.

"I, uh…I got nine." Lily then made herself very busy with buttering a piece of toast.

Mary's eyes grew wide. "You got _nine_ O.W.L.s?"

"Yeah," the redhead mumbled.

"Well, I got seven," Marlene stated matter-of-factly. "I heard James Potter got ten."

Lily dropped the knife she was using to butter her toast. It fell to the floor with a _clank!_ and the witch dove under the table for it. Taking advantage of the time out of her friends' sight, Lily took a deep breath and forced a straight face before coming back up.

"You're just a regular little gossip today, Marlene," Mary was saying, as Lily's head rose above the table.

The blonde witch shrugged. "I just pay attention to things. I heard him telling Sirius about it when I walked past their compartment on the train."

"Who would have thought that between hexing people at random, James Potter was actually learning things," Mary joked, shaking her head.

Lily started cleaning off the dropped knife feverishly. She tried to tell herself that she had no reason to be mad. It wasn't like James hadn't done better than her in exams before. But she had worked so hard last year. It wasn't fair. She actually worked for her grades and James Potter gets handed ten O.W.L.s on a silver platter.

"Calm down, Lil, I think you're burning through that knife with all of that friction." Mary's voice permeated Lily's angry thoughts. She realized she had been wiping her knife so hard that the napkin she was using had started to wear out.

"Oh. Right." She set down the knife and the napkin.

"Are you really upset about James getting more O.W.L.s than you?"

Marlene cut her off before she could answer. "Lily has been competing with James for grades for ages."

"I have not!"

"Pur-lease. As soon as he managed to transfigure a match into a needle seconds before you did, you've felt the need to show him up."

"We do not _compete_."

"Call it flirting, then." Marlene reached for her bag and if Lily hadn't already been blushing, she would have at these words. "But it's nice to see that you're feeling emotions again."

Marlene rose and Mary followed suit. "Better hurry up, Lily, I think McGonagall is starting on the sixth year schedules now." Mary said as the two girls headed toward the end of the Gryffindor table.

Lily stared at her plate._ Ten O.W.L.s_, she thought bitterly. Once again, Lily felt bested by James Potter and the thought had made her lose her appetite.

* * *

The Marauders were seated several feet down the table from the conversation about Elizabeth Marsh's summer romance. Sirius had transfigured a piece of bacon to walk around his plate, giving a little jump whenever he ate a fellow slice. Peter was watching the bacon with admiration, applauding excitedly whenever the walking bacon protested Sirius' appetite. Remus watched out of the corner of his eye, a small hint of enjoyment in the corner of his lips, that he appeared to be fighting off by paying Sirius as little attention as possible. James was having trouble staying awake. Remus was the first to notice.

"Feeling okay, James?"

"Just tired, is all," James mumbled.

"Did you sleep okay?"

"Not really."

"Did you get up in the middle of the night?" Sirius interjected. "I thought I heard someone rustling about the room, but I was too tired to check on anyone."

"Real nice, Padfoot," Remus scoffed.

"I trust that you could all defend yourselves if anything bad were happening. Even you, Peter," Sirius joked, causing Peter to turn a deep shade of red. "Anyway, was that you last night, Prongs?"

"No," James lied. "Must have been Stebbins' cat."

"Oscar? He was probably looking for Wormtail again."

"That cat knows I'm not a real rat. If he knew it was me, he'd probably try to kill me in my sleep!" Peter squeaked out, shaking a bit at the thought.

"Maybe he's just working on a plan to make it look like an accident." Sirius winked at Peter, who stared at Sirius looking petrified, as if he had never considered that possibility.

James let the others fall into conversation about whether or not Oscar the cat suspected that Peter was the Animagus rat he'd been chasing for the past year, occasionally throwing in a bit of insight, but mostly using the time to think. He wasn't sure why he had lied about being out of bed the previous night. The worst that would happen would be Sirius getting upset that he wasn't woken up and invited to the kitchens with James.

But why hadn't he invited Sirius? Truthfully, he kind of wanted the time alone. He'd been taking more and more opportunities to be alone lately. At first, he thought it was because Sirius had moved in with them and he was just overloaded by the amount of time they spent together. But now he was lying about sneaking out to him and completely hiding the fact that he had talked to Lily last night.

_He had talked to Lily last night_. The thought washed over him and he was surprised the other three boys didn't notice it. Lily had been pleasant to him, Lily had been apologetic for being short with him – all major signs of progress with a girl he'd spent years pining for – and he was hiding it from his best friends. James couldn't explain his actions any better than he could explain why Lily was suddenly being decent to him.

"What about you, Prongs?" Sirius' voice cut through his thoughts.

"What about me?"

"Have you thought about what classes you're going take?"

"Ah." James had only briefly considered his classes over the summer. He was a brilliant student, and there was no use denying it, but he was altogether unsure of what he wanted to do after Hogwarts and the subject received even less thought than his potential classes. All that really made sense to James was Quidditch, though that wasn't for a lack of trying elsewhere. "I think I'm going to take it easy this year, just the basics."

"Yeah, well, after your ten O.W.L.s, you probably deserve it."

Remus dropped his fork and it crashed onto his plate. James looked at his friend, whose jaw had apparently dropped as well.

"_Ten O.W.L.s_?" he sputtered.

"Yeah," said James simply. Under other circumstances, he would have boasted his achievements, but his encounter with Lily lingered in his mind and coupled with his intention of not hurting Remus. He had a lot more riding on these grades than James did – few people are eager to hire a werewolf, let alone one who isn't at least a brilliant wizard – so it seemed a bit unfair to gloat about how easily he had managed ten O.W.L.s.

"I'm happy with eight," said Sirius. James was grateful for the attention shifting off of him. "Can't blame me for falling asleep during History of Magic and I never really expected to pass Ancient Runes."

"_Ten O.W.L.s_," Remus repeated under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief.

James turned to Peter, who had been silent this whole time. The small boy's eyes now seemed to take up half of his face and the other half was his opened mouth. James looked back to Remus, then Peter again, then–

"Okay, can we talk about something else? Look, Reginald Cattermole seems to have gotten taller over the summer. How about that? Or–"

"Alright, alright, calm down, mate," Sirius cut off James and stared at him curiously. "We won't talk about it anymore."

"Thank you," James mumbled. He stared at the eggs on his plate and he could feel Sirius' eyes on him.

The four boys sat with only the sounds of silverware clinking on plates and bowls. This was nearly as bad as the conversation. James chose to focus on his food and keep from looking straight at the others. He hated that he had done better than Remus and hated the implications of doing so and hated that he had snapped at his friends, but he hoped that, if nothing else, at least they would understand.

The normal flurry of owls penetrated the silence. A large brown barn owl landed between James and Remus. The young werewolf untied _The Daily Prophet_ from it, dropped a few knuts in a pouch tied to its leg, and the owl flew off. Once he was certain Remus was preoccupied with the paper, James looked up. Remus was buried behind the newspaper, Peter was pulling apart a piece of toast, and Sirius was giving James a look that he knew meant they'd be talking later.

"It looks like McGonagall is starting on sixth year schedules," James said, avoiding Sirius' eyes. "I'm gonna go get that sorted out, then." He stood up and walked away from the table while his friends said some vague parting words. Remus didn't look up from his paper.

James walked between the long tables to where the line of students waiting to get their schedules from Professor McGonagall ended. Standing in front of him was Marlene Wright and Mary Macdonald. Upon his entry to the line, the two witches turned around, as if investigating whoever they felt walk up behind them.

"Hi, James!" Mary said brightly.

"Hi, Mary, Marlene," he said, acknowledging them both.

"Potter," Marlene said, nodding at him. James was unsure if he should say something next, but that decision was quickly made for him.

"Is it true you got ten O.W.L.s?" Mary blurted out.

"Geeze, Mary, don't lead into it or anything," Marlene said.

"Sorry," Mary said unapologetically. "So it is true? You got ten?"

James ran his fingers through his hair, wanting nothing more than to leave the conversation.

"Yeah, I did." Predictably, Mary's eyes doubled in size. "How'd you find out?"

Mary looked to Marlene, who refused to meet either of their stares.

"Ah, Wright, the fountain of gossip," James said.

"I just pay attention, Potter," Marlene defended.

"Well, pay a little less attention to me, yeah?" James snapped back, harsher than he intended.

"Ooo, touchy. Careful now, you've got a new reputation to uphold."

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

"Ten O.W.L.s? That's not too common. And it definitely won't go unnoticed. Slughorn might finally ignore your constant trouble-making and come after you."

"How do you know he hasn't tried already?"

"Oh?" Marlene fixed her gaze on James.

"My father is well known in the Ministry, I've been Quidditch captain since fourth year – the youngest captain in ages, mind you – and consistently top of our year. C'mon, Wright, I'm a prime target for old Sluggy. I've just been brilliant in avoiding him."

Marlene rolled her eyes. "No one avoids Slughorn once he wants them."

"Oh, Marlene, that kind of thinking won't get you anywhere. That's why I got ten O.W.L.s and you got…?" His voice trailed off and her eyes locked onto his. The blow had been unexpected, and James knew it.

"Potter, you are unbelievably insufferable and how you managed to get ten O.W.L.s with that head full of hot air is beyond me." With that, Marlene turned around in a huff and stood in front of Mary, who gave James a small shrug before turning her back to him.

"Ouch," said a voice behind him. James looked over his shoulder and saw Sirius' mop of dark hair.

"I should have known you'd follow me," James said to his new companion.

"Forgive me for being concerned that my best mate appeared to be a bit off-kilter," Sirius responded melodramatically, with a very real underlying sense of concern. The two boys stood and stared at each other.

"Well?" Sirius finally asked.

"Well, what?"

"Well, what is going on that makes you suddenly ashamed of the fact that once again you bested everyone in our year in exams?"

James sighed and the two boys walked forward in line. "I don't know, Padfoot. It just…doesn't seem right rubbing that sort of things in around Moony, y'know?"

Sirius raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Moony?"

"Yeah." Sirius' expression did not change. "Look, with his…" – James' voice dropped – "_furry little problem_, he tries to make up for what he thinks he lacks by doing well in classes. I don't even try, but he does. It's one thing for me to throw it in the face of every Slytherin I come across that I'm a better wizard than they are–"

"–which you better do–"

"–but Remus is family and I refuse to make him feel like he's inferior to me, because he's probably twice the wizard I'll ever be," James said with such finality that Sirius could no longer doubt his reasoning.

"Fair enough, Prongs. Just making sure you didn't jump off the deep end."

"No worries, mate."

They took a few steps forward with the dwindling line and Sirius turned to James.

"So Wright was flirting with you again?"

"She can't keep off of me."

* * *

Lily opened the door to the dormitory and found Marlene and Mary already there.

"Amy and Elizabeth?" she asked, nodding toward the other girls' empty beds.

"Elizabeth started crying again after breakfast, so I think they're camped out in the second floor bathroom." Marlene responded. She was seated on her old four-post bed, painting her toenails an unoffensive shade of light yellow.

"Oh, Myrtle will love that," Lily said. "She loves it when anyone is more miserable than she is." On this, she slumped into her bed, and began running her fingers over the soft covers.

"We lucked out with having a free period first," Mary commented from behind a copy of _Witch Weekly_.

"This is probably the only time we'll actually have free time. It's supposed to be used for studying," Lily replied.

"Well, that shouldn't be too bad for you, Miss Nine-O.W.L.s," Mary said playfully.

"Speaking of," Marlene interjected, "We saw Mr. Ten-O.W.L.s while waiting in line for our schedules."

"James?"

"Yup. Apparently his test scores haven't made him any better of a person. He's still unsightly arrogant. I told him off and he told Sirius I was hitting on him. Can you believe that? The nerve of that boy." She shuddered.

"I don't remember Sirius being there," Mary said thoughtfully.

"You were too busy flirting with Stebbins."

"So you decided to eavesdrop?" Lily teased, sitting up and tucking her feet under her thighs.

"It's not my fault they talk so loudly," Marlene said, "I also heard that Remus' rabbit is acting up again."

"He has a rabbit?" Lily asked.

"I think so. I'd assume he leaves it back home, since they're always talking about what a problem it is."

"And just so I've got this right, Sirius and James…were discussing Remus' rabbit?" Lily asked, somewhere between confusion and skepticism.

"Yup," said Marlene.

"Boys are weird," Mary added.

"Not all of them. Just the Gryffindor sixth years," said Marlene.

"Stebbins isn't so bad."

"He has an annoying cat."

"Oscar is cute!" Mary pouted.

"Oscar tore up my book bag in the common room last year."

Lily started picking at her fingernails. "Are you two honestly arguing about Stebbins' cat?" she asked.

"That cat is a demon, Lily," Marlene said.

"You're overreacting."

"Sorry, would you rather we go back to discussing James?"

Lily blinked and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I must have completely missed your transition on that one. Why, in the name of Merlin, would I want to talk about Potter?"

"Well, the O.W.L. situation did seem a bit unresolved this morning," Mary offered. Lily turned sharply and glared at her. Marlene's eyes lit up with amusement as she held back a laugh. Mary pursed her lips together and shook her head. "Alright, I can see that we're a bit sensitive on that still."

"I'm not sensitive – I just want to beat James Potter over the head with a copy of _Hogwarts: A History _until he confesses to having bribed the test auditors," Lily said.

"Why _Hogwarts: A History_?"

"It's the heaviest book I own."

"You own a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_?"

"Christmas present from my parents and so not the point, Marlene."

"Why don't you just talk to him?" Mary suggested.

Lily opened her mouth, but Marlene's voice came out first.

"Lily and James haven't exchanged anything other than insults in years. Use your brain, Mare."

"People can change," Mary stated firmly.

Lily closed her mouth and didn't offer a correction to these statements. This closeness with Mary and Marlene was new and she didn't want to unload her complicated feelings about James on them just yet. Besides, Lily was still unsure how the previous night fit into her newly rediscovered, though slight, resentment of the dark-haired Gryffindor.

"James Potter? He'll never change," Marlene said, and Lily found herself nodding in agreement.

* * *

"Just Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Charms, and Transfiguration this year?" The head of Gryffindor house was reading his classes off of a sheet of parchment. Even though James had reached, and subsequently passed, her height in his fifth year, it still felt as though McGonagall towered over him. James shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

"Yeah, just those."

McGonagall looked over her glasses at him.

"Mr. Potter, I have your O.W.L. scores in front of me. You recieved ten O.W.L.s, nine of which were an 'Outstanding.' I know for a fact that you could handle a heavier course load." She looked at him and said each of the next few words purposefully. "More knowledge is never a bad thing."

James had been expecting this. "Professor, any extra time spent in classes is time I could be using on the field," he said.

"_Quidditch!_" McGonagall nearly spat the word out. "Potter, I am not going to deny your talents as a Quidditch player, but _you_ are denying your precious, practical talents in magic."

"You're starting to sound like my mother." James hadn't intended to say the thought aloud and he looked up at his professor, expecting a harsh comment along the lines of how he should listen to his mother more often. It never came.

Instead, Professor McGonagall softened her stare and James relaxed. "All that I can do is ask you to reconsider. If you wish to make any changes, see me before the end of the week. Good day, Mr. Potter." With nothing more to say, she handed him his schedule.

James stared at it as he headed back toward the Gryffindor common room. The exchange with McGonagall left him with an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

He had never given much thought to life after Hogwarts. Though spellwork came easy to him, he attributed most of that to the expectations of a pureblood Ministry family. His parents were old – older than most, even – and he found that as long as he did well enough in school, they would leave him to his own devices. They never pestered him too much about his future, either. The career conversation before his O.W.L. examinations was nothing more than a grunt from his father about Ministry apprenticeships before the subject was dropped. Maybe he wasn't sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life playing Quidditch, but at sixteen, James had a hard time imagining doing anything else.

"Hey, Prongs! Wait up!" Sirius' voice trailed behind James and he slowed down, allowing it to catch up.

"Did you notice the free periods?" Sirius waved his schedule in front of James' face. "Reckon by next week we'll have to actually start using them."

"Are you hinting at something, Padfoot?" James asked.

"Well, I did notice that Bertram Aubrey might have gained a little weight over the summer," said Sirius, "and I'm just throwing this out there, but don't you think he looks a little disproportionate now?"

James smirked. "You're always two steps ahead, mate."

"I'm the brains of the group, clearly."

Several fifth year Gryffindor girls walked down the stairs and the two boys slid past them. Sirius made eye contact with a few of them, but one passed over his gaze for James'. Gina Turpin smiled at him, and his eyes followed hers, even after she had broken contact and walked away from them.

Gina was a nice looking girl, James thought. Her family lived rather close to the Potters and wizarding families, particularly those of pureblood, would often try to establish bonds before school age. The years since their childhood had been friendly to Gina Turpin. She was quite tall for a girl her age, but she now had curves that made the height less intimidating. Her long, black hair almost made it look as though she were a Potter (though, with Pureblood families becoming less pure and rarer than ever, it's likely she wasn't too far from it). She seemed more comfortable in her own body than the gangly child who had been terrifed of James' toy broomstick.

But when she walked past him on the staircase, these details hardly flashed through James' mind. "Gina Turpin was a nice looking girl." Full stop.

The thought had left him before he even made it to the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbing through the entrance to the common room, he had forgotten it entirely.

* * *

The first class for the Gryffindor sixth years in 1976 was a double potions lesson. Lily was brilliant at potions – it was the one subject that she knew, without a doubt, she could best James in. It could not have been timelier, then, that after learning that James had surpassed her in their O.W.L.s, she would have the chance to out-score him. It wouldn't quite make them even, but it certainly make Lily feel better.

However, walking to that first potions lesson with Mary and Marlene, Lily's thoughts were not of O.W.L.s and James, but of Severus Snape.

_"What if I'm terrible at potions, Sev?" an eleven-year-old Lily Evans asked, as she clutched her enormous copy of _Magical Drafts and Potions_ to her chest. They were walking down the long dungeon corridors, Lily's nervousness building as she imagined what her lessons in magic were going to be like.  
_

_"You won't be, Lil. You're the smartest person I know," Severus Snape answered. Lily felt her cheeks flush. She looked to Sev and his face was the same shade as her own. "Besides, I can always help you, if you really need it," he muttered quickly, brushing his long, dark hair over his cheeks._

_Lily reached down and squeezed Sev's hand once, gently. "Thank you."_

The trio walked through the dungeon door and a quick scan of the room sent a fresh wave of anxiety over Lily. There were exactly three seats open:

A Ravenclaw boy, whom Lily knew by face, but didn't know by name.

James Potter.

And Severus Snape.

Lily inhaled sharply, but couldn't find it in herself to continue breathing. She tried searching for a way to resolve the seating issue, but knew she could never ask Mary or Marlene to take that kind of bullet for her. The only resolution was for her to sit with Severus and the idea made her nauseous.

She was brought out of her shock by a hard clap on the shoulder. "_Miss Evans!"_ Professor Slughorn said, drawing out each syllable, "For a moment I was worried that you weren't going to continue in potions!"

She exhaled hard. By now the entire room was staring at her. James cocked his head to the side and looked at her curiously. Sirius took no liberties to hide the grin that occupied half of his face. Sev merely glanced at her, before turning away to scribble in the margins of his book. Upon seeing that, Lily couldn't distinguish the other faces in the room from each other.

Her wit had abandoned her and all she could manage was a small, "Just running a little late." But Slughorn had already turned away from her and was heading to the front of the room.

She looked to Marlene, whose blue eyes were nearly completely round. And as if the two girls weren't shocked enough, without a word, Mary stepped out from behind Lily, walked across the room and sat down next to Severus.

The few seconds it took Lily to register what had just happened were apparently enough for Marlene to follow a lead, because before Lily could blink, Marlene was seated next to James. Mary and Marlene never looked back at Lily, who was suddenly rooted to the back of the room. A silent pact of friendship had been made and it made her forget for the moment that she was in a room full of her peers, most of who were still staring at her.

"Ah, switching it up, are we?" Slughorn's booming voice in the front of the room pulled Lily out of her unexpected trance. "Well, go on then, take a seat, Miss Evans."

Still slightly foggy, Lily walked over to the desk of the blonde Ravenclaw. He smiled at her, a kind of soft smile that suggested a passive empathy for her. As she sat and pulled her book out of her bag, she took long, deep breaths, forcing herself to recover from what had just happened.

"We'll be working on Befuddlement Draughts today. An interesting potion, requiring the utmost precision, or else risking permanent bewilderment! Instructions–" Slughorn flourished his wand and his neat cursive snaked itself across the blackboard. "–are on the board. You have two hours. Good luck!" With an amused smirk, he settled into his desk, the chair looking a bit snugger around his body than it had a few months before.

"Sloth brain? We have to use _sloth brain?_" The boy next to Lily was transfixed upon the board, a look of horror frozen on his (rather nice-looking, Lily noted) face. "Disgusting!"

"There's logic to it, at least," Lily said.

He turned to face her. "Not a bad observation, _Miss Evans_." He emphasized her named the way Slughorn had only moments before and Lily wasn't sure if she should laugh or cringe. "I guess getting stuck with you wasn't a completely horrible twist of fate."

Lily couldn't come up with a quick-witted response, but she didn't need to, because the Ravenclaw boy jumped up to collect supplies from the cupboards as soon as the last word fell onto her ears. She watched him as he piled vials strategically in his pockets and then – _OH!_ – he bent over to grab what looked like a large bottle of honeywater off of the bottom shelf and Lily felt she should at least know the boy's name before admiring his fit bum. She began looking up Befuddlement Draughts in her copy of _Advanced Potion Making _and copying down the notes from the board. A minute later, she heard glass clinking on the desk, but didn't look up.

"Well, I'm fairly certain I got everything we need, but getting it in one trip was a bit of a trick."

"Are you sure? There are a lot of ingredients." She scanned the instructions again. "This is going to be a lot more complicated than any O.W.L. level potion."

"I'm sure you can handle it. Word on the street is that you earned yourself nine of those O.W.L.s."

"How do you know that and I don't even know who you are?"

"My name is Bradley Chambers, sixth year Ravenclaw, photographer extraordinaire." He held out his hand. "It's an honor, Lily Evans," he said with an exaggerated bravado that might have annoyed Lily, had it not been for the precious toothy smile that it came out of.

"You only answered half of my question."

"I can't give away all of my secrets. That just wouldn't be fair." And then he _winked_ at her.

Lily laughed out loud. There was no malicious intent, but realizing that it could draw attention, she clasped both hands over her mouth. Bradley's cockiness lacked any authenticity. She had to applaud his commitment to embracing the fact that he wasn't actually all that smooth and still going for it, anyway. He had the distinct sense about him that perhaps he had only recently grown into an attractive young man, and was still figuring out how to proceed in this foreign body. Lily thought that maybe he expected her to brush off his flirtations and realized that she expected the same of herself.

But there was something undeniably sweet about someone so beautiful being unsure of themselves, so Lily laughed.

Bradley's face dropped and she tried to stifle herself. "I'm sorry! It's just – I'm mean, you're–"

"Adorable?" he interrupted hopefully.

"–very sure of yourself." Lily corrected. The pair's eyes met and seeing Lily attempting to stifle a laugh made Bradley chuckle. Seeing him laughing kept Lily from holding hers in, and eventually the two of them erupted into a fit of laughter that seemed to surround their table.

"Still glad you ended up paired with me?" Lily teased.

"I can't say I've ever laughed that much in this class, so at the very least, I'm not regretting it," Bradley said, grabbing the honeywater and emptying the bottle into his cauldron. Lily sifted through the pile of ingredients on the table, before settling on the sloth brain and began cutting it into equal sections.

"You don't have to do that!" Bradley started.

"Please. As if you're going to cut up a sloth brain. I saw your face when you read the ingredients."

He hung his head slightly and resigned, then started adding wartcap powder to the cauldron while stirring. They sat in silence for a bit, the sound of Lily's knife clicking against the table forming a steady rhythm between them.

"So why haven't I seen you in potions until now?" It had been in the back of Lily's mind ever since she had seen the empty seat next to him.

"Apparently potions isn't a favorite for most in our year and they only had enough students for one N.E.W.T. level class. I heard a rumor that half of the Hufflepuffs failed the potions O.W.L., but I'm a firm believer that old Sluggy scared people away."

"He is a bit much sometimes."

"I'm not sure which is more difficult," Bradley said, "Being in the Slug Club and having Slughorn obsessively love you," he dumped dandelion root into the cauldron, "or not being in it and having him think you're worthless."

"You're not worthless," Lily said, without looking at him. She scooped up the chopped up sloth brain and added the pieces to the now iridescent blue liquid bubbling in the cauldron. Wiping off her hands, she noticed Bradley staring at her.

"What?"

"Miss Evans, you are a wonder."

Lily felt heat rise up from her collarbone to her hairline. She hated blushing and wanted immediately to hide her face, but Bradley was flashing that toothy grin at her, and all she could do was smile back.

Slughorn brushed past Lily and Bradley and leaned over their cauldron.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Potter and Miss Wright," he called loudly to a few tables over, "you should take note of Miss Evans' work. See how the light blue shimmers? Perfect. You should have measured your wartcap powder more carefully, Mr. Potter."

Being called out as doing better than James did nothing to make Lily's blush go away. She hadn't even measured the wartcap powder! That had been Bradley. She started to say something, but Bradley reached over, patted her on the shoulder, and said, "Isn't she just a bright one?"

"I had no idea you carried the team for so long, Miss Evans," Slughorn joked, nodding to the back row of seats, where Severus' cauldron was hissing and emitting a dark gray smoke. He looked positively ready to throttle Mary, who was frantically flipping through _Advanced Potion Making _on the verge of tears, trying to find a remedy to the mess of a potion sitting in their cauldron. She made a mental note to thank Mary profusely after class. Slughorn sighed and walked to the back of the room to see if Mary and Sev's potion was salvageable.

She turned to face Bradley. "Why'd you do that?"

Bradley brushed remnants of potion ingredients off of the table with the side of his palm, "Do what?" he asked.

"Give me credit for the potion. You measured the wartcap powder, why didn't you say something?"

Wiping his hands off, he leaned in closer to Lily. He smelled vaguely of cinnamon and tree bark and it pulled Lily's heart to dancing in falling leaves. He lowered his voice and said to her, "Maybe I'm okay with people assuming I'm worthless."

Slughorn's voice came up from the back of the room. "Your Befuddlement Draughts should be ready by now. Collect a vial of your potion and leave them on my desk, labeled with your names. You're dismissed."

Bradley dipped a vial into the cauldron, capped it, and placed in on Slughorn's desk in one swift movement.

"If being partners with you means I can stay invisible, I think I'll see you next class, Lily," he said to her, as he leaned over to grab his book bag from under his seat. He smiled at her, a genuine smile, with a strange affection Lily couldn't pinpoint. She sat glued to her seat, following him with her stare until he dipped out of the dungeon.

A voice came up from behind her. "I would say that you owe me big time, but Potter isn't too horrible at potions and I may have just gotten a decent grade, even if our potion wasn't a 'shimmering light blue.'" Marlene slung her bag over her shoulder. "Surprisingly, working with him wasn't awful, as long I kept him talking about Quidditch. How'd things go over here with Ravenclaw boy?"

Lily spun on her stool to face Marlene. She briefly considered spouting details about the boy who just left her head feeling foggier than it had been a couple of hours before, but she remembered his lips and how they formed the word "invisible"" and thought she'd let him stay that way for just a while longer.

"I'm guessing it went better than Mary's class did."

The two girls turned to the back of the room, where Severus had stormed off, leaving Mary in a shaking heap, trying to put a cork on a vial of their still smoking Befuddlement Draught.

"You owe her."

Lily sighed. "More than you can imagine."


End file.
